LG says webOS makes smart TV “easy,” gets Netflix 4K

The mobile OS adapted to the big screen is looking pretty slick.

LG's preview for its webOS-based smart TV platform, including a closer look at Bean Bird.

LG announced that webOS will be coming to half of its 2014-edition smart TV products at a press conference at the Consumer Electronics show Monday. The webOS interface will include voice and gesture input as well as control with a remote, with users being guided through the webOS features by a character LG calls Bean Bird.

LG first tipped its hand with a Korean press release last night and indicated that it designed webOS to contrast with the “difficult and complex” smart TVs on the market (a problem Ars dinged the market's products for last year). The focus on the interface is as a “launcher,” and users can swap between apps (an adaptation of webOS’s cards interface) without forcing the current content on the screen out of view.

Apps used on LG TVs in the recent past are organized to the left in reverse-chronological order. The interface does not appear to have the dashboard or home screen that typically anchors smart TV interfaces. According to the Korean press release, LG plans to market its smart TVs as “easy to use"; they will be easy to connect, with “easy switching” and “easy navigation.” Roku has taken a similar course with its own upcoming line of smart TVs.

LG announced that its lineup for the year includes plasma TVs 42 to 60 inches in size, as well as eight new LCD series TVs ranging 22 to 70 inches. The company did not announce any price points for its new entertainment products.

Update: previously the headline stated that Netflix 4K would be exclusive to LG. Netflix 4K content will also be coming to Samsung, Sony, and Vizio TVs later in the year.

65 Reader Comments

I don't want a smart TV. I want a dumb TV that easily attaches to a smart box. Maybe I'm wildly out of touch with the common consumer, but I'd think people would be more interested in a disk player with solid streaming capabilities, and then be able to focus on the TV just in terms of size/performance. The market for smart boxes is weird, though: all the disk players have second rate streaming capabilities, and all the good smart boxes (AppleTV, Roku, etc.) don't have disk players (I know, I know, but they'll be with us for a while yet, especially with people like Amazon playing funny games with the digital assets you supposedly "own".)

I thought plasma screens were not very popular and on their way out a couple of years ago; I remember hearing about them being energy hogs and difficult to watch in a room that wasn't completely dark. I see they're still making them so I guess those issues have been resolved since? I'm still on an HD CRT so obviously not in the loop on these things!

I don't want a smart TV. I want a dumb TV that easily attaches to a smart box. Maybe I'm wildly out of touch with the common consumer, but I'd think people would be more interested in a disk player with solid streaming capabilities, and then be able to focus on the TV just in terms of size/performance. The market for smart boxes is weird, though: all the disk players have second rate streaming capabilities, and all the good smart boxes (AppleTV, Roku, etc.) don't have disk players (I know, I know, but they'll be with us for a while yet, especially with people like Amazon playing funny games with the digital assets you supposedly "own".)

Unless that smart box attaches to speakers, I'm not interested. The benefit of a smart TV over a "smart box" like Roku is that it eliminates the concept of inputs, they are simply part of the "smart" interface. What most people like is simplicity, and I feel that limiting the smart features to "input 1" detracts from that simplicity. I personally think the "smart" functionality is best served when it overlays all inputs, meaning that it should exist on the TV or home theatre receiver (someone please make this, I'd by a webOS home theatre receiver in a heartbeat).

PS: The smart box with a disk drive that you are looking for does exist, it's called a gaming console.

I'm trying to figure why Netflix considers making 4K content exclusive to LG to be a good idea. Even if the deal is temporary and lots of $$$$ are involved.

Most likely because it's the only real way to push the limited 4K content available to more people without losing their shirt over it. As long as the exclusivity is short-term this is a good idea for Netflix and consumers. They get a boost in income and are able to push out more 4K content.

Considering there are not too many 4K TVs on the market at the moment that most people can afford it's probably Netflix's only way to be able to stream 4K efficiently until more TVs support it and are available at a price point more people can afford. Especially at the larger sizes.

I don't want a smart TV. I want a dumb TV that easily attaches to a smart box.

That would be a monitor. You can get those. You tend to give up some features like 240 Hz with automatic frame interpolation, if that was a thing you wanted.

Coax isn't that common of a connector for monitors though is it?

It used to be that the difference between a monitor and the TV was the tuner. If you're asking about coax, that makes me think you're still wanting a tuner. No box that I know of has coax out for its video stream, so I'm not sure why coax would help anyway.

As much as I want to root for LG (and for a more 'human' TV 2.0), I have zero faith in LG's software prowess. I also don't trust them avoid the main SmartTV pitfall: No updates for older devices.

These hardware manufacturers business models depend on you buying new TVs. The whole 'software' thing is a new world to them that they're not sure how to handle... If old TVs can suddenly handle new features, the need to buy a new TV is gone.

It's a battle between the 'old' profit center and the 'new' expectations of consumers and their digital devices.

I don't want a smart TV. I want a dumb TV that easily attaches to a smart box.

So do I. I don't want my huge, expensive LED-LCD panel to become obsolete just because Netflix develops a new protocol or some new streaming service launches, or, heck, maybe a new Wi-fi security standard comes out or something.

Sadly, I think we are. Trying to talk my parents through attaching their Roku to their HDTV has shown me how little the average person understands (or wants to understand) about such things. But I still don't understand why the market has shifted towards the combo-TV model.

I owned a LG monitor way way back that still brings me nightmares. For those who don't know - LG stands for "Lucky Goldstar". If you ever owned one of those monitors you will likely never buy a LG product again.

I don't want a smart TV. I want a dumb TV that easily attaches to a smart box. Maybe I'm wildly out of touch with the common consumer, but I'd think people would be more interested in a disk player with solid streaming capabilities, and then be able to focus on the TV just in terms of size/performance. The market for smart boxes is weird, though: all the disk players have second rate streaming capabilities, and all the good smart boxes (AppleTV, Roku, etc.) don't have disk players (I know, I know, but they'll be with us for a while yet, especially with people like Amazon playing funny games with the digital assets you supposedly "own".)

Game consoles? I find my PS3 is better for streaming then my Apple TV with a better interface, more supported formats, features etc plus plays discs. A better Blu-ray player than any standalone I've used too.Although I live in Canada and don't know how well things like Hulu or whatever else I can't get are supported.

I thought plasma screens were not very popular and on their way out a couple of years ago; I remember hearing about them being energy hogs and difficult to watch in a room that wasn't completely dark. I see they're still making them so I guess those issues have been resolved since? I'm still on an HD CRT so obviously not in the loop on these things!

I have a 2012 top end 65 inch Panasonic plasma set that is the best TV I've ever owned.

It does NOT require a dark room to produce an outstanding picture.

Yes, I think plasma will fade away in favor of OLED, LCD, and LED sets but this is a 100,000 hour panel, so after it wears out in 8-10 years, I'll have all sorts of choices for a replacement.

I thought plasma screens were not very popular and on their way out a couple of years ago; I remember hearing about them being energy hogs and difficult to watch in a room that wasn't completely dark. I see they're still making them so I guess those issues have been resolved since? I'm still on an HD CRT so obviously not in the loop on these things!

Plasma screen aren't popular among most consumers, as companies have pushed lots of buzzwords at them based on LCD tech (frame interpolation! deep black! 120/240 hz! LEDs!). Some of those have valid positives, but most are very small incremental features that most people don't even get the benefit of because they don't calibrate their displays enough to even notice it (BRIGHTNESS TO MAX FOR EVERYTHING PLZ!) or they have no idea how it works (activating frame interpolation for films, making everything look weirdly surreal).

Meanwhile plasma still appeals to a core group of people: those who want excellent picture quality with no fluff. Due to plasma's nature, it doesn't need lots of weird workarounds common in the LCD world to achieve accurate image reproduction - it's got almost all of the positives of old school CRTs (accurate color reproduction when calibrated, blacks that are black, accurate frame rate display for various source material), but it suffers from a consumer problem, namely that it's a bit more expensive to produce a good plasma panel, you don't get a lot of buzzwords with plasmas, you need a fairly controlled environment to watch it in (it needs to be darker), displays are heavier because of the materials involved, and there are basically only two manufacturers left. They also debuted when larger displays weren't as common as they are today, and plasmas usually start at 50".

For all those clamoring for dumb TVs, get a plasma - they're usually somewhat barebones affairs because the people that buy them are usually folks that care only about image quality and would really like all this smart TV stuff to go away and instead rely on separates for the most flexibility.

Once again the market has spoken and chosen what it usually does; people want huge, cheap TVs with lots of flash that usually have completely horrid image reproduction instead of an accurate image depiction. Can you get an LCD comparable to a plasma? Of course. But at that point displays reach price parity, and you're comparing specs and weighing which things are important to you; your typical consumer isn't going to even get close to that price point.

Yes, I get annoyed when the market lets quality die over quantity in situations like this.

I thought plasma screens were not very popular and on their way out a couple of years ago; I remember hearing about them being energy hogs and difficult to watch in a room that wasn't completely dark. I see they're still making them so I guess those issues have been resolved since? I'm still on an HD CRT so obviously not in the loop on these things!

I have a 2012 top end 65 inch Panasonic plasma set that is the best TV I've ever owned.

It does NOT require a dark room to produce an outstanding picture.

Yes, I think plasma will fade away in favor of OLED, LCD, and LED sets but this is a 100,000 hour panel, so after it wears out in 8-10 years, I'll have all sorts of choices for a replacement.

Actually OLED seems to be fading in popularity for large screens, but that could be a temporary problem. Plasma has the best image, but note some of the LCD TVs use IPS type displays. Not as good as plasma, but not as bad as those old 6bit TN LCDs.

I'm just impressed anyone can make a 4k plasma.

Regarding LG being Lucky Goldstar, I'm old enough to remember what crap they made. However nothing is static. Samsung used to be crap years ago too.

Unless that smart box attaches to speakers, I'm not interested. The benefit of a smart TV over a "smart box" like Roku is that it eliminates the concept of inputs, they are simply part of the "smart" interface. What most people like is simplicity, and I feel that limiting the smart features to "input 1" detracts from that simplicity. I personally think the "smart" functionality is best served when it overlays all inputs, meaning that it should exist on the TV or home theatre receiver (someone please make this, I'd by a webOS home theatre receiver in a heartbeat).

PS: The smart box with a disk drive that you are looking for does exist, it's called a gaming console.

I got a smart box + disk drive + speakers from Sony at a reasonable price (I'm not an audiophile and have a modest room to wire). The problem is that the apps are limited (no MLB.tv...sniff). Generally speaking, though, with HDMI wiring stuff up has become wildly less complicated. Not giving HDMI a pass on the moronic DRM, mind (every now and then when I attach my computer it will wig out because it thinks, well, I don't care what it thinks).

Gaming console is, ironically, what I got for my parents, rather for that reason. At the time it was Blu-Ray + Netflix, and I knew it would be supported for a while, while I (accurately) had no such faith in the Google TV systems that were the alternative at the time. I can't quite justify the premium for gaming that I would never use (sure I'm old, but you'll pry my keyboard and mouse out of my cold dead hands).

Netflix 4K? They can barely manage 1080p SuperHD at peak times now, how are ISPs going to respond to 4K streams?

I feel bad for the poor sob who buys this thinking he's going to see any 4K anytime soon. Not only is the content not there, the bandwidth isn't even close. The HD quality on Netflix is already crappy between 4-9PM for me.

First off, to all who don't want smart TVs, just don't post here, it's not like no one is making dumb TVs any more. And don't all gang up on the person who mistakenly called them monitors, you know very well what he meant.

Second, I really do hope they start paying more attention to the smart part and less to simplifying. TVs are way too simple and miss out on a lot of possibilities which come with modern computers and internet.

Game consoles? I find my PS3 is better for streaming then my Apple TV with a better interface, more supported formats, features etc plus plays discs. A better Blu-ray player than any standalone I've used too.Although I live in Canada and don't know how well things like Hulu or whatever else I can't get are supported.

Did that for my folks at a good time for the Playstation 3 price point (also, the competition at the time was Google TV, which I wasn't totally confident would last...). The premium on the new consoles now, though, was too much for me.

I may, at some point, try to hack a media PC together, maybe following Coding Horror's build.

A locked in embedded smart-tv module in a HDTV is a dumb idea. Smart TV 1.0 was ridiculous and not used for more than streaming a blurb or two about weather or news. Smart TV 2.0 is dubious and the wifi connectivity is too slow to actually stream Hulu or Netflix in most people's homes. Most people are still on wireless-G. What is needed is dual band-N at a minimum and no smart TV has wifi-AC. I'm sure lots of people are going to see "Buffering" on their tv all day. Now imagine trying to pump 4K (2160p) info; when 3Gbps is needed for 1080p content. Hopefully the tv has a ethernet port and a cable modem sitting right beside it because this is dead on arrival otherwise. Figure they'll need minimum of 5-6 Gbps to push 4K content over netflix - LG combo. Wish them lots of luck in the Regular Joe's living room.Once again, the Roku box killer is coming, and integrated smart-tv is still-born and worthless because of hardware upgrades. Look at your smartphone and tablets. every year is better and more features. Soon Miracast and Airplay Mirroring tech is going to be ubiqituous with android devices and when that happens, Roku and Chromecast need to reinvent themselves because you will have that device in ur pocket.

Regarding LG being Lucky Goldstar, I'm old enough to remember what crap they made. However nothing is static. Samsung used to be crap years ago too.

Yah, Korea made essentially the same transition Japan did when it came to manufacturing crap to quality. About the same amount of time after a devastating war impacted everything about the country, too.

In my opinion, the problem with software from Korean companies is that they sill haven't learned to value software quality or security. In my experience, a Korean's first impulse is to demand results in an unrealistically short time frame for an unrealistically low price.

When you apply that mindset to software development, you get rushed, buggy software. Add to that a business model for consumer electronics that relies on product churn and trying to convince consumers to ditch the "old" shiny for the next big thing, and you have no business motivation to fix the problems.

A dumb TV is NOT a monitor. It's a TV. Monitors don't have tuners, often lack speakers, often are much smaller.

The fundamental issues with Smart TVs are twofold;1, They're selling a computer but pretending it's an appliance. Unless you're bundling software that someone else is responsible for updating (ie. Windows), surprise, you're now a software vendor. Companies like LG are going to do a terrible job of this and forget about you, or worse (ie. the LG TVs phoning home) pretty much immediately. Updating an OS is not their core business and it's a disaster waiting to happen. Remember it has a camera and microphone in your living room.2, They're tying an expensive 10-15 year ownership, to the aforementioned crappy / likely to be abandoned computer. At least with a Roku (or smartphone) I'm only expecting security updates for a few years. TVs are major appliances that families hang on to until they physically stop working. When a random box ceases to be maintained, I can toss it. If the box is built into my TV, I can't. At best I can disable it, but most consumers won't.

Color me unimpressed and please continue to sell me TVs where I have to choose my input, and hook up a box. Also, +1 to the plasma people here. Picture quality FTW.